Why on earth was that man acting like that? His large pupils were dilated as if erect to the limit. It looked like they would explode at any moment.
Was that annihilation, or disappearance?
He didn’t have the confidence to face the man’s violently surging emotions. Woonghee wanted to bolt from this place. He wanted to flee hastily however he could.
“I, I’ll be going ahead…”
A tremendous presence he had no confidence to endure. Woonghee evaded from that vast gaze. Curling his tail and hurriedly bowing his head as he returned to the bungalow.
“Why, why are you… following me in?”
The man had never followed when Woonghee showed his back, only leaving him alone. Wasn’t he the man who always stayed away from the bungalow? He always left Woonghee here alone and disappeared suddenly.
It was because of his germophobia that he was born with like his two eyes. He seemed to regard others like cockroaches… In fact, hadn’t he avoided them as if his nose would rot if he mixed breaths, as if his skin would melt if their bodies touched, as if they were dirty? But why had he followed into the bungalow now?
“Why?”
He asked nonchalantly. A familiar delinquent smile hung on his lips. Those eyes, those eyes were the problem. Weren’t they hazy as if poisonous mushrooms had been shoved down his throat?
They were drunken eyes like someone who spread out their thick tongue wide and sucked in poison.
“Is there a problem with me coming back to my own house?”
He naturally thought he’d sleep alone again today. Woonghee stepped backward at the thick arm that wedged through the door gap. Gradually backing away one step at a time to avoid the man who was closing the distance…
“…Uk!”
Woonghee thud, sat down on his buttocks. A stinging sensation stabbed his sole. Oh no, the man lamented. Woonghee hurriedly sat down. He fixed his two eyes on his sole. A fairly thick wooden splinter was stuck there. His soft sole turned reddish and trembled.
“You’re not even a kid.”
Thunk, the man’s hand moved to Woonghee’s crown. Frozen like a rabbit grabbed by both ears, his hair was painfully pulled out.
“Ah…”
It was the tie pin stuck in Woonghee’s hair. He pulled it out, then grabbed Woonghee’s ankle and examined the injured area. He stared as if to pierce through that half-reddened thing.
Why on earth was this bastard acting like this? Why was he glaring as if to dissect him like that? Wasn’t it as if he was opening the skin to look at the white bones inside? As if he would dissect him like a wild boar.
He’d changed.
Something had altered. He was a man who didn’t reveal emotions to a pathological degree, sinisterly harboring them in his chest. But now it was different. He could feel his emotions surging violently. He was stuffing them into that complexion. They were seeping out stickily through the breathing holes.
Woonghee’s slender ankle was gripped in the large hand.
“……”
Why did this moment feel so long…
When he said something was strange, the surroundings were excessively quiet. Wasn’t it as if only the man and he existed in this world? It seemed like not even a human presence or the breath of a single beast could be heard.
Come to think of it, this man said that looking at my ankle reminded him of the swan he raised as a child. Could this strange behavior be related to that? Anyway, the more you know, the more bizarre and strange he is, like a thriller movie. He couldn’t even fathom what would be at the end of this conclusion.
“I’m not that swan…”
Did he hear? My voice—can he actually hear it?
It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, yet the man acted like a madman as if he couldn’t hear anything.
Your ankle is as slender as a nape, Woonghee-ssi’s skin is white and soft as expected, have you ever broken it?
Only such recitations like a crazy bastard were filling this void.
***
The next morning at dawn.
He stayed up all night with his eyes open. The surroundings were still dominated by hazy dawn light. The man rose from beside him. Beyond the dim view, his back muscles could be seen rippling.
It was a back as if wearing the muscular hide of an animal. His brownish tanned skin had a silky sheen flowing over it.
He took down the shirt hung on one side. He wondered if he’d luckily picked up a hanger, but looking closely, it was made from a tree branch. Looking at that bastard, you really feel keenly that human development has come hand in hand with the advancement of tools.
He wrapped the smooth black shirt without a single wrinkle around his back. He was buttoning it up one by one.
Where on earth was that bastard going at this dawn?
Suspicious as expected. Woonghee silently observed him.
Creeak, the man who opened the door went out cutting through the sticky dawn breeze. He still counted to ten. Only then did Woonghee raise his upper body. What to do. He’d already blown two whole days. He was worried about the sap hidden in the forest. He wanted to leave the bungalow right this moment, but not yet.
He had to wait for the right time.
He still didn’t know the man’s living pattern. So he needed to watch his movements. Woonghee tried moving his thighs this way and that. His skin was hard like stiff meat. Thud, thud, it was swollen like elephant legs. Woonghee pressed the skin with the tie pin. It didn’t go in very deep.
“I’m fucked…”
Crazy, there was no sensation at all.
Thump, thuum, his heart raced anxiously. It felt like thick elephant legs were stomping all over his body. It felt like his heart would melt and mix with his bones.
He carefully opened the bungalow door. Perhaps because it was early morning. The sandy beach was empty. Whaaeng, after the wind blew, silence fiercely rushed in from all directions again.
“……”
It was as quiet as a mouse, as if the commotion from two days ago was a lie. Moreover, there wasn’t a single footprint on the sandy beach. Still, with as many as eight people passing through this place, there should have been footprints packed so densely with almost no gaps, but why were there only a few stamped firmly today?
There was excessively no sign of people. Wasn’t this just like an abandoned house? Really like a deserted island where no one lives…
Whoooosh, an eerie sea breeze blew.
According to the man, everyone had safely returned to the island. But still, he wanted to confirm with his own two eyes…
Unable to leave immediately, Woonghee spun around in place. Then he returned to the bungalow dragging his feet. Perhaps because he’d returned to his dwelling, relief clung fiercely to his skin.
The man returned when the sun was hanging at the very top of his head.
“Why that again…?”
Woonghee lifted his buttocks. Woonghee had never been one to sit still. He was in the middle of crushing his buttocks on the ground splitting coconuts when something as big as a house was approaching him from far away.
The large-built Managing Director Gi was nimble compared to his silhouette, but today that heavy weight could be felt. His form was even more massive than usual.
It made sense. He wondered where he’d been. It seemed he’d hunted new prey. There still seemed to be plenty of meat left from what they ate yesterday. Had he thrown that to the other people?
Thuum. Managing Director Gi threw the wild boar onto the sandy beach. Though it was a wild boar with strong roots that could smash human bones with those big teeth. Now before humans, it was just a meal.
“……”
There were levels to hunting too.
Catching fish was relatively easy, but catching land meat was considerably difficult.
On top of that, catching a wild boar as big as a house would be even less easy.
Catching it itself was a problem, and dismantling it directly with a knife was an even bigger problem. He had to grab that thing three times bigger than a person and separate bones from flesh.
It was no ordinary task both physically and skill-wise. However, the man scraped two long knives, scratch, scratch. After sharpening the blades like that, he began dismantling the wild boar. He looked skillfully deboning the meat.
‘…Strange.’
Woonghee slowly turned his head. He rolled his eyeballs around. Such a splendid dismantling show was being performed, yet the bungalow doors were still firmly closed.
By this point, people should be gathering. They should be shoving their faces in and fawning to somehow get a piece of meat.
Why was everyone so quiet? Not even a single ant in sight.
“……”
He’d believe it even if they said everyone had taken that raft and crossed over to that island…
Should he knock on Paeng Hana’s door, or should he subtly hint something to Assistant Director hyung? Woonghee, who had been stealing glances at Managing Director Gi’s back, carefully clenched his fist and knocked on the Assistant Director’s bungalow door.
“Hyung.”
But there was no answer from inside. What? Had he gone to piss? Was he still sleeping? He thought he’d call once more.
“Hyung.”
That’s when it was. When a presence was heard from inside.
“Hyung, it’s me, Lee Woonghee.”
Then, the Assistant Director hyung’s eyes appeared through the gap between the wood. White gleaming eyes shot out. At that eeriness, Woonghee flinched in surprise and stepped back. Swish, swish, Assistant Director hyung rolled his eyes as if surveying something. They were eyes heated bright red. Had he not slept properly?
They were eyes that seemed to crave something, or seemed anxiously pursued.
“…What are you?”
It was words barely squeezed out in a trembling voice.
It was a question of why he was standing in front of his bungalow. Was there reason to be so wary? In bewilderment, Woonghee couldn’t immediately continue speaking.
“Th, that…”
He tried to assert his innocence by spreading his palms, but Assistant Director hyung didn’t wait for his words.
“Why are you suddenly talking to me?”
“No, it’s not that, Managing Director Gi caught a wild boar…”
Hyung’s eyes that had been fixed on him suddenly whipped to the side. No, to be precise, they fixed beyond Woonghee’s shoulder. Behind, someone had come from behind!
A creepiness stabbed his heart like a blade.
